flowable/flowable-engine · error · ActivitiIllegalArgumentException

userId and groupId cannot both be null

Error message

userId and groupId cannot both be null

What it means

When deleting an identity link from a process definition, exactly which link must be removed is determined by userId and/or groupId. If both are null, validateParams throws ActivitiIllegalArgumentException because the deletion target is undefined.

Solutions

1. Pass the userId or groupId used when the identity link was added (addProcessDefinitionIdentityLink).
2. Validate at the call site that at least one identifier is present before deleting.
3. Log/inspect ACT_RE_PROCDEF identity links (or use repositoryService.getIdentityLinksForProcessDefinition) to find the exact stored identifier.

Example fix

// before
repositoryService.deleteProcessDefinitionIdentityLink(defId, userId, groupId); // both null
// after
repositoryService.deleteProcessDefinitionIdentityLink(defId, null, "sales");

if (userId == null && groupId == null) {
    throw new IllegalArgumentException("Provide userId or groupId for process definition identity link deletion");
}

try {
    repositoryService.deleteCandidateStarterGroup(defId, groupId);
} catch (ActivitiIllegalArgumentException e) {
    log.warn("No identity given: {}", e.getMessage());
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling deleteProcessDefinitionIdentityLink(processDefinitionId, null, null) or the candidate-starter variants with a null identifier argument.

Common situations: Generic authorization-management screens where the user/group field was left empty; configuration-driven cleanup where the group name was missing from config; code copying add-identity-link validation but inverting parameter order.

Understand the failure class

Background: "missing required argument" and "the following required arguments were not provided": what required-argument errors mean and how to fix them — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

• processDefinitionId is null
• processDefinitionId is null
• userId and groupId cannot both be null
• appDefinitionId is null
• identityId is null

AI-assisted analysis of flowable/flowable-engine@d6d39ce1c6 (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/d58278f2f094222d. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at modules/flowable5-engine/src/main/java/org/activiti/engine/impl/cmd/DeleteIdentityLinkForProcessDefinitionCmd.java:51

    protected String userId;

    protected String groupId;

    public DeleteIdentityLinkForProcessDefinitionCmd(String processDefinitionId, String userId, String groupId) {
        validateParams(userId, groupId, processDefinitionId);
        this.processDefinitionId = processDefinitionId;
        this.userId = userId;
        this.groupId = groupId;
    }

    protected void validateParams(String userId, String groupId, String processDefinitionId) {
        if (processDefinitionId == null) {
            throw new ActivitiIllegalArgumentException("processDefinitionId is null");
        }

        if (userId == null && groupId == null) {
            throw new ActivitiIllegalArgumentException("userId and groupId cannot both be null");
        }
    }

    @Override
    public Void execute(CommandContext commandContext) {
        ProcessDefinitionEntity processDefinition = commandContext
                .getProcessDefinitionEntityManager()
                .findProcessDefinitionById(processDefinitionId);

        if (processDefinition == null) {
            throw new ActivitiObjectNotFoundException("Cannot find process definition with id " + processDefinitionId, ProcessDefinition.class);
        }

        processDefinition.deleteIdentityLink(userId, groupId);

        return null;
    }

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